Noem’s $100,000 approval rule stalls mission-critical DHS contracts

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s June directive requiring her personal sign-off on every contract and grant over $100,000 has left hundreds of “mission-critical” projects in limbo, according to internal department documents obtained by the New York Times.

As of 30 July, at least 530 spending requests were sitting on Noem’s desk, while another 1,500 awaited lower-level clearance before reaching her. The memo establishing the policy promised five-day turnaround, but records show many requests have lingered for weeks.

The delays are touching nearly every DHS component:

• Transportation Security Administration: A lapsed contract for passport-screening technology forced furloughs at the vendor and threatened to push airport screeners back to manual ID checks—raising security risks and checkpoint delays.
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement: More than 60 pending contracts include detention facility payments. In Boone County, Kentucky, a $500,000 jail contract was delayed two weeks.
• Customs and Border Protection: A contract for polygraph testing, required under the 2010 Anti-Border Corruption Act for hiring new Border Patrol and ICE agents, sat idle past its start date—slowing the administration’s plan to expand enforcement ranks.
• Federal Emergency Management Agency: Roughly 200 contracts were awaiting approval, including inspections of six million disaster-damaged homes. FEMA’s disaster-assistance call centers also suffered staffing gaps during the July Central Texas floods when renewals stalled.

The Coast Guard reported that its Mobile, Alabama, aviation training center temporarily closed dining and janitorial services due to an expired contract, forcing pilots into hotels at an added cost of about $10,000 per day.

Noem’s office defends the measure as a “cost accountability process” that has canceled nearly 500 contracts and purportedly saved more than $1 billion, though DHS has provided no documentation. Spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said contracts are reviewed within 24 hours and blamed longstanding inefficiencies inside components for any lag.

Contracting experts note that prior administrations reserved secretary-level review for projects in the hundreds of millions. Lowering the threshold to $100,000, they caution, risks paralyzing operations and creates the appearance of political interference.